| Description | Printed minutes containing matters laid before Council, the Royal Society's governing body of Fellows, with records of decisions taken.
Commencing with a list of Council members present: Major-General John Theophilus Boileau; Warren De La Rue; Captain Frederick John Owen Evans; Edward Frankland; Albert Gunther; Thomas Henry Huxley; Thomas Wharton Jones; Joseph Norman Lockyer; Reverend Robert Main; Daniel Oliver; William Pole; Warington Wilkinson Smyth; William Spottiswoode; George Gabriel Stokes; Alexander William Williamson; the President, Joseph Dalton Hooker, in the chair.
Among matters discussed or noted: minutes of the last meeting read and approved. Deaths of John Joseph Bennett, Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Strange and Adolphe Theodore Brongiart. The President announced that the £6,000 donation had been received from Mr. Phillips Jodrell and a committee was formed to consider investment and appropriation of the funds. Letter from H.W. Chisholm, 7 Old Palace Yard, Westminster, 19 February 1876, to the Secretary, the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: on the history of comparison of the two standard metres of platinum lent by the Royal Society, and asking permssion to take the standards to Paris, for comparison with the new platinum-iridium standards; the Astronomer Royal and W.H. Miller concur in this proposal and Chisholm further proposes that Messrs. Troughton and Simms should engrave two guide-lines on each side of the defining lines; resolved that permission be given, but that the metres should not be cut with a graving tool, although there would be no objection to etching the marks. Read a letter from the Admiralty requesting that Mr. C.S. Peirce of the U.S. Coastal Survey be allowed to make pendulum observations at Kew Observatory, granted. Letter from Robert Mallet, 7 Westminster Chambers, Victoria Street, London, 13 March 1876, to George Gabriel Stokes, Secretary, the Royal Society, full text entered into the minutes: on a reorganisation of the Meteorological Department by the Government of India, communicated by his son, providing the opportunity to inaugurate a connected system of seismic observations at meteorological observatories; Mallet gives a summary of the observations that might be made and asks Council to consider taking action; the letter referred to Dr. Robinson and General Strachey for advice to Council. Letter from the President of the Royal Astronomical Society read and leave granted to Mr. Knobel to use the Royal Society's Library. A letter from Messrs. H.W. Bristow and R. Hunt referred to the Library Committee. Letter from Mrs. J.E. Selwyn, Cambridge, 11 March 1876, to George Gabriel Stokes, full text entered into the minutes: offering negatives of eleven years of sunspot photographs taken at Ely by the late Canon Selwyn, accepted with thanks. Read a letter from Dr. Martin, consideration deferred. Letters from the President of the Congres International des Orientalistes and from the Secretary of the Franklin Institute, requesting Royal Society delegates for events. Council meetings for the selection of candidates for the Fellowship to be 6 and 11 April. Mr. Lockyer brought forward the subject of illustrating lectures in the Meeting Room, the subject referred to a committee formed to consider the matter. Mr. De La Rue called attention to the recent action to promote the establishment of a Physical Solar Observatory in India, the question referred to a committee for advice. |